Hello Breaking Point! (Not Mount Gwanak)

Since I’ve been here, the most annoyingly persistent issue I’ve had is with people walking into me. I can’t say that walking directly into me is a habit limited to any particular demographic of Korean – men/women, young/old, urban/rural – Koreans just walk into me. It’s an amazing phenomenon – imagine if everyone around you was listening to their iPods while texting with blinders on and that’s my life now. People walking into me as if to walk through me from all sides and even trying to avoid them doesn’t help.

This is maddening…keeping this in mind…

My principal invited Matt and I out hiking on Mt. Gwanak last Sunday. We were joined by my Korean co-teacher, Mrs. Song. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever physically done in my life. There were some vertical climbs where I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it to the top – I was too scared to cry – but Matt, Mrs Song and my principal pulled and pushed me along.

All in all, I was just terrified but what made the trip less an endeavor of overcoming fear and more of a unbearable bastion of awful was the mass of people. At the peak, our small group ran into hundreds of people walking/climbing/tip toeing around and seemingly through us. As I was struggling to find my way up and around a boulder, a stream of people from various directions pushed around me. Of all places…